Maximus says that people sometimes get the fate they deserve. And other times they do not. He believes it is arbitrary. But that sometimes the gods take a very personal interest ... and that can either be a good thing or can be very vexing.

I would say the gods had taken an interest in him. Some days when I am on my own and pondering the imponderable, I wonder if he has outrun the gods. If coming here, he has thwarted their interest in him ... that maybe they cannot reach him here.

If so, does that mean that maybe his fate is now up to him?

He loved when I asked him things like that. We would get into the most rousing discussions when he accused me of Christian views as if I am some dilettante ... and I reminded him that he is the last person walking on the earth who truly believes in the Roman gods. When's the last time some buxom maiden had to fight off a lusty god intent on turning her into a bush or something, I asked him the last night he was in town.

It's odd. The way he looked at me.

"What? I was just kidding around," I said to him. "Max?"

"I will only be gone a few days this time," he said, as if that was a reasonable response.

"Are you okay? I feel like I just said something that pissed you off."

He reached out suddenly and cupped my cheek. We were walking, just meandering during that magic time in Spring when the warmth of the day is lingering into the evening but before the mosquitoes have come out in clouds to do their daily feeding.

"Do not stray from the farm while I am gone this time, Anna. Promise me this ... I would not ask it if it was not important."

I stopped. He reached for my hand, to drag me along with him but I resisted. "You have to tell me what is going on."

"I will tell you when I return."

"No. I'm not any safer here than out there ... not if I don't know what the danger is. Max, don't do this. You make me feel like ... like sometimes you do things like this just to keep me under control."

His eyes flashed instantly. He stood tall. Rigid. It was like a switch flipped. His voice was a low menace and he prowled around me. "When have I ever played such games with you? Why would you believe I had begun now? I am your husband ... you will not give me the trust and loyalty to obey me in this? You have suspicions of my motives?"

"I think you forget that I am a fully functioning person ... I am not a child, Maximus. If there is a danger to me, I deserve to know."

"Why do you speak to me thus?"

He kept moving around, forcing me to slowly swivel just to keep eye contact. "Am I in danger? Is there a real threat?"

"Why were you in the city two days ago?"

His question came from nowhere, as if it was a weapon thrust out of a secret place in order to cut open the answer before I could put up any defenses. My blood seemed to stop running; the menace was there, hidden just beneath the lethal softness of his voice.

"I was meeting with Luke Ferris. About the baking contract."

"You are pursuing this, even though I have expressed my feelings?"

I never have reacted well to attack. I felt petulant; I heard in my head Luke's assessment of why I had turned down his offer; in some ways, I knew then, Luke had been right. And Maximus would never know, never get it. "I knew you wouldn't understand."

"What is there to understand? You went behind my back, sneaking around as if ... Anna, we had agreed, you and I, about this."

"No. We didn't agree, Max. I gave in to you."

He stopped moving. He held his hands behind his lower back. He pursed his lips. I waited on an explosion. He had other ideas. "It becomes clearer, then. What do you intend to do?"

I lowered my eyes. "I haven't decided."

"When did you intend to reveal your plans to me? Or perhaps you and your Mr. Ferris thought to keep it a secret forever? A secret from the only man you should have shared such a decision with, Ann?"

"If you had just not been so dismissive of this, maybe I would have talked to you about it. But I knew if I did, you'd just ... You'd never understand why this was important to me to be considered for this contract. Maybe if you weren't so intent on keeping me up on some shelf where I can only be one thing ... maybe you'd see that everyone deserves to chase a dream if they can."

"Why would I want to stand in the way of your dream? Ann ... do you think me so horrible? Should I have spoken less bluntly to you about this endeavor?"

"You throw up our agreement, about me not working full time, you threw it up in my face just when I needed you to think this through with me ... so I know you didn't even give it any consideration. Even all these months of being together, you think I'm going to just cave in when you command me to obey you? Sometimes, I just change my mind ... sometimes something happens that deserves changing our plans. But if you won't talk it over with me as if my opinion does count ... it isn't fair. I won't stand for it."

"When have I not allowed you to speak your mind? When could I have stopped you?"

"Don't be dense."

"So now I am insensitive, untrustworthy and stupid? Do I have even a scrap of a good quality left in me? Or do I deserve to be spoken to in this manner in my own home?"

"I don't know what to say to you, Maximus. I can't talk to you about this."

"Then you plan to continue pursuing this absurd notion with a man about whom you know absolutely nothing? Against my counsel?"

"Is that what this is?" I asked him softly. "Your counsel?"

"Of course."

"Not your order?"

We stood there, edgy, looking at each other ... my eyes flicked around his face and body as I found it hard to not wither in front of him. I suddenly felt the pressure of hiding all this from him all these days. Of knowing it would end this badly. And here it was ... the fight with him I'd known would come when he found out I'd pursued the idea with Luke.

My knees seemed to buckle without me even being connected to them. These last few days had felt half dreamed; maybe I staggered out of a dream just then. I am not good at this kind of subterfuge. All I do know is that he caught me and I reached for him. The moment we touched each other, the fight snapped out of us both.

He does not say he is sorry at times like this. He does not say he was in a bad mood. I say I'm sorry too fast, when I am really just hating that we've fought. I sometimes say it only to hide that I am still angry. But if we touch each other, I think we know what the other feels in a moment like that. At least, I will always believe we knew the other regretted these harsh words ... and regretted even more the turmoil that had drawn them out of us.

I slid my arms around his back and held on. He had one hand on the back of my head and the other on my lower back. He bent over me. I had my cheek pressed hard in over his chest. His heart sounded strong and fast.

"I agreed to meet with him just to hear him out and because I thought I should see if it was something I wanted," I said to him, my voice hushed. "But even before I heard their pitch, I already knew it didn't matter so much to me that I'd battle with you like this just to force it to happen. And I knew you objected but it hurt my feelings that you never really talked it out with me. Maybe that I would not fight for this makes me weak and maybe I was ashamed of that ... but I still told him no, Max."

For a long few moments he said nothing. He held me to him and I could have imagined it, but I think his heart slowed its heavy beating. Finally he stroked my hair and kissed at my temple. It was a light flicker of a kiss. He released me and we stood so close together. I stared at where he held my hands between us, his fingers playing with mine.

"I will not lie to you, cara. I do not want you to do this," he finally said. "But it is not because I do not want you to have a life that includes more than the home. I wish you to have what you want in life. But my foolish ego wishes to give you everything you could ever want."

"Sure, I understand ... but you can't give me everything I want, Max. Some things I want just because I have to work to get them."

Is it any consolation to me now, looking back from this side of the divide, that we at least did not part with angry words when he left early in the next morning? I suppose it may be just a tiny bit. But I wish that we had not argued at all, not about something that placed at us at odds over Luke Ferris.

For as long as I have left to remember this, I will be sad that our last night before Max left was not the easy, sweet time I would wish it had been. There was undeniable tension. I just don't know that I could have defined the tension for what it really was. But then I didn't know everything that was going on.

Perhaps this is why the memories of our honeymoon have become the memories into which I hide out for however long I have to keep them as memories before they are stolen from me. They represent something to me ... an attainment of a state of peace so fragile and ethereal that to grab hold of the memories with your fist, in anger or fear, then they will disappear as if they never existed.

As if the life we created never existed at all.

We kissed. It was light, soaked with passion that could bide its time just a fraction of a moment longer. Just until one of us made a fateful move to send it blazing.

"Shall I tell you of my love? Would I have words for this?" he sighed against my temple as he drew his hands slowly down my back. Somewhere out there, the city of Rome cast a spell over us.

"That's all you ever have to say," I answered him, breathless with the feel of him under my hands, against my body, nothing but the infinitesimal thinness of a layer of raw silk between us. I got this sudden vision in my mind ... of the silk not proving a barrier to him ... and my knees weakened when his fingers trailed down the back of my thighs.

He sat on the bed, the mattress shifting beneath him as he moved to draw me right up against his chest, standing there between his thighs, now spread wide ... and I looked down to see his cock jutting up, dark and needy. Instinct made me close the gap between our bodies there, to lean in on him, to almost shove my groin in over his, to rub slowly over his hardness ... seeing in his eyes his reaction to the feel of filmy silk against his hardness, heightening its awareness, its sensitivity, its need.

His hands began to slowly gather the length of my gown, rolling it up my legs as he deliberately let his fingers skim along, knowing I'd shiver in his arms and surrender even more to him.

I felt his mouth open against my neck. I arched, giving him invitation to maul me there. He only whispered against the skin ... and I knew the words ... a love poem, in Latin, that he had taught me ... and had taught me its hidden meanings.

"Maximus ... I won't last if you don't have mercy," I whispered.

"I shall have no mercy on you, mistress," he replied before completing his poem's recitation.

I cupped his face in my hands and kissed him. I could have eaten him alive in that instant. I wonder at the fury of my response to him at such times. That he had always been able to draw out this woman who lusts for him in a way that knows no bounds of propriety. Who did things with him that felt so natural, so a part of who she is ... but that she had never dreamed of doing before she knew him. It never felt tawdry or forced. It felt instinctive. But it always felt possible only with him. It would never happen with another man and her.

When I sunk to my knees, I took my time. He resisted me doing this at first ... only because he had other intentions. He kept a steady pressure on the back of my upper thighs until I whispered against his ear, "I have dreamed of this."

I kissed his chest, lingering with my tongue. His hands played with my hair. 

He smelled almost too clean, with lingering hints of woodsy soap scents. I traced a finger over his tip and followed with a light circling of my tongue. He sighed. I felt wetness drip between my thighs. What can I say without sounding gross but when you are free to have nothing off limits and to give everything ... would it ever make sense or beauty to anyone but those involved? Tongue, fingers, palm ... lips ... mouth. Until he groaned and his fingers wound in my hair pulled hard enough for me to guess how close to the edge I had him. How hard he was fighting for control. I never felt the need to contain my body's reaction to him ... just the opposite.

When I looked up at him, his face was turned to the ceiling, neck muscles corded. He looked more man than I was capable of taking on. But I still rose up his body until I hovered over him and was watching him breathing through his mouth. And then I just leaned into him, capturing his mouth with mine ... and he took me over to another world, another time.

How can I lose this memory? Surely I can find a place to keep it safe even if time takes its best punch at me?

The day Maximus left on this new mission that worried him enough to insist I stay on the farm while he was gone, I sat in the room where another woman had once painted in solitary pursuit of expression only she knew needed to come out to see the light of the world.

I had promised him that I would not stray, even to the pub, while he was gone. I knew he had given Ralph some instructions. I saw them talking and I imagined Maximus assigning Ralph some last minute additional duties. Then Ralph walked Max to his car. He stood near the fence and watched Max drive off.

Whatever was going on, Max had promised me he was taking care of it and that the only reason anything might happen at the farm would be if he failed. But he would take no chances, he told me. He was troubled. I wondered about the kind of mission that would get to him this badly. My only conclusion, reached after Buck and I had taken a long walk only to have Ralph come searching for us, was that someone that Max's team was after must have threatened to get to his family if he pursued the case.

I have a belief in Max that could be beyond doubt, if you asked me. I knew he was not Superman, but I believed nothing would ever be so insurmountable, no man so strong, no enemy so devious that Maximus could not deal with it. That does not mean that I did not worry over him when I knew he might be in danger.

This was just the first time I'd feared that some danger from his work really could get to me. He'd warned me before to take this seriously. I thought I had. But now I realized that I never really believed it. I suppose it's because I didn't see that world to which he gave so many hours, such devotion and such energy. He kept it from me except on those infrequent occasions when he'd come to me after a tough mission and he'd crawl into my arms. Sometimes when that happened, he'd need to take possession of me, to make love to me, physical and demanding, as if proving to himself that he was alive and celebrating that he was still a virile, dominant man. And other times, he just needed so much to have me watch over him, care for him ... to show that no matter what, I would be there waiting with love and sass, that he always had a place where his woman waited for him.

This time, I felt the vibes. This was different. Danger was on our doorstep. What could I do? Barricade myself? Run to my mother's to hide? No, if Max was leaving me here, then I trusted that nothing would happen. He wouldn't let it.

What I needed that day was something to keep me occupied. I started to bake rosemary infused parmesan crusted popovers for Rosie's but the whole hobby of baking was now tainted over the way Luke's offer had caused Max and me to argue the night before he left. So after I'd dragged everything out, I stood there looking at the large mixing bowl into which I had sifted flour and hated it with such passion I could not use it. I turned and left the kitchen as if I might never return.

Needing something to occupy my mind, I tried to read a novel but couldn't concentrate. Then I was going to clean but I never got beyond dusting Max's altar. He had not taken my figurine with him this time. I tried to pretend it didn't matter. But it did.

Maybe I had a premonition.

It is embarrassing to admit that I cried about this. Not sobs, mind you, but tears that dripped into a melancholy from which I sought solace in the artist's studio upstairs. That I just lay there after letting it all out ... exhausted beyond all reason by the release of these emotions. Buck lay next to me, his head on my tummy, his eyes shut as I breathed in and out, too spent to do anything else. After the enveloping silence had dragged on for a long time with me lost somewhere else, I heard him sigh and felt him twitch. I looked down my body at him. He was fast asleep. Having a dream.

God. Is there anything like a dog's unconditional love and belief in you all the while he believes he must watch over you?

Just then his eyes opened and he yawned, so big and wide I could see down his throat until his tongue curled on itself. The absurdity of that sight made me giggle.

I pulled out the watercolor set I'd found stashed at the very back of the top shelf where her supplies had once been kept. I cannot draw to save my life but I needed something to express this feeling. I retrieved one of her sketch pads, the one that had fallen behind the filing cabinet when Ralph had tried to empty this room of every bit of her art before Max and I moved in. I opened it to the first blank page, grabbed a dish of water, a brush and began painting Buck as he watched me. I did not once look at the page, instead just drawing as his eyes moved and then the sweep his tail made on the hardwood floor.

This impressionistic idiocy all came to an abrupt stop. I saw Buck's ears prick up straight and his body tense in anticipation. He ran to the window, barked, looked at me ... and then I heard the approach of a car's engine.

From the window, we watched the car near. It was not Max. 

I did not run down the stairs. But then, I was not anxious to see the people driving up to see me. Buck, however, raced down hell bent for leather, barking and yipping up a fury.

Ralph was outside the stable, heading for the house. He called out to me, asking if I was expecting anyone. I told him it was okay.

It was Luke, William and Tony. They stretched as they exited the car, as if they'd driven a long distance and for some reason that amused me. People so often thought coming out to Folsom from the city was like driving into the deepest forest of the Amazon but it was not that much more than an hour or so.

Luke barely glanced at Ralph. He grinned at me. Held up his hands as he approached and as I walked down to meet him. "Don't be upset, Ann. We just happened to be in the area and thought we'd drop in. See if there wasn't some way you'd changed your mind?"

"No, haven't changed my mind," I said, tightly.

"Is your husband home? We thought if he heard this deal from us, we might convince him that ..." William said as he studied Ralph who was standing nearby, awkward and unsure if this violated whatever directions Max had given him.

"He is not home. He's away on business. But even if he was here, he would not appreciate this. You really think he'd listen to your pressure tactics?" I said.

"You would be shocked what your husband would consider if the terms were exactly right," Luke said slowly, deliberately.

"It wasn't his decision. It was mine. So talking to him would not have done you any good anyway."

"We've come a long way, Ann. Maybe we could just talk a little?" Luke said and now we were so close that I could see the edgy way he glanced behind me, as if expecting someone to walk out.

"Why is this really so important to you?" I asked him.

I heard Ralph call my name. I heard Buck barking and then his growling snarl. It all happened so fast. Too fast to react properly. Luke would not budge as I tried to move past him to find out what was happening to Ralph ... to see what Buck was attacking ...

"You're about to find out," Luke said, his mouth at my ear as he gripped my forearm and began dragging me back toward the house.

It was then I saw ... Ralph was about to throw a punch at William ... Buck was running in, snapping at William ... but Tony jumped into the fray ... what the fuck?

I peeled Luke's fingers from my arm and ran toward Ralph. I don't know what I would have done if I'd reached him. I didn't understand why they were fighting. By the time I got close, in just that little amount of time, Tony had locked Ralph's neck in a vise of his arms and William was punching Ralph in the gut. I could see Ralph's face ... see his eyes ... I know I screamed for them to let him go.

Luke's arm grabbed around my waist and lifted me. I watched them release Ralph and he fell to the ground with a thud. And then ... and then ... Buck was lunging for William's leg again ... Williams kicked him as if Buck were nothing ...

And then I was free and I raced to where Buck had landed, shallow pants, low whimpers. I cradled him in my arms and whispered to him ... I could feel him settle down, and knew he'd be okay ... I turned to look at Ralph, crumpled on the ground, on his side, arms holding himself tight around the ribs, his eyes focused on me even in his pain.

"Bring him to the house," Luke said behind me. 

Tony and William hoisted Ralph up between them and began dragging him toward the house.

"You come with me. Don't make me hurt you, Ann. It's not my intention," Luke said.

I rose to my feet, holding Buck, hushing him to keep him still as he gathered his strength. It all felt so very surreal to have terror drive up to our doorstep in this particular guise. For it to erupt out of nowhere, with no warning. And to know Max was off somewhere and would never know what was happening back here where he'd been worried something might hurt us if he wasn't successful on his mission.

And this was when I think it began to prick at me. "Why are you doing this to us?"

"You are a means to an end. We shall see how dearly your husband holds the value of your life."

"My husband is a formidable enemy. You have no idea what you've done. He will never let you get away with hurting his family."

Luke smiled, grimly. The blue in his eyes seemed to flare. "Maximus ... a formidable enemy? Yes, I have heard him described thus. But when it comes to matters between Maximus and me, we speak the same language."

"What do you want from him?"

"Atonement."

I dive down ... down ... and underneath it all there is no regret. None. I will miss every single moment I lived with him if I am indeed to never have them.

How I will miss remembering the touch of him that night. The taste of him on my tongue. The way he chuckled when I licked under his arms. How he buried his nose behind my knees and almost hummed his enjoyment at the perfume he had hoped to find there ... his favorite scent on my skin other than the natural odor he identified with me so acutely. He used to say he could smell my arousal, that my pleasure was a taste all its own, that my satisfaction was a sound he would never erase from his memory.

Don't. I wish he could but I know he won't.

He will remember this. I know he will. He will picture it in his mind, torture himself, be satisfied that he feels it so deeply, be anguished over the knowledge that it will have all been in vain for us despite the love we said would survive time itself.

This one will not. Now I know this is the most likely scenario. Is it any wonder that while I can, I dive into a memory of him and me together, of a memory of loving him?

But that night of our honeymoon, we believed in the power of our love to transcend time, to last beyond death. We believed. I know we did and I know we had every reason to believe as we did.

He was so gentle when it came time. We grew silent, we slowed to where we were only holding each other. As if what was about to happen between us was almost too much to start. I remember the look in his eyes when I told him I loved him, that there were still so many moments when I could not believe how lucky we were to have met. His thumb flicked gently over my nipple, which was hard and sensitive. I put a hand over his to stop him. I reached toward him and kissed him. His shoulders moved as he came over me, gently pushing me to my back as he settled between my knees. He rocked against me, his hardness dragging over my damp and yearning sex. His arms were braced next to mine. I cupped his face before reaching down to guide him inside me.

Why is it that this moment is not the one in which I linger? Not that I don't love that the memory of him entering me, thrusting up and up until he was fully inside, makes me wet. But it is not the singular moment ... the one that will be the strongest anchor in my heart.

That moment came when he neared his climax. His eyes gleamed. His skin was damp from sweat. Mine was slick against his. I was coming, my eyes seemed to unfocus as if I was staring at some distant point ... and he put his mouth at my ear ... and told me he could see our child in my eyes.

He talked all the time I was coming ... and I was fighting it, overwhelmed by who was inside me, who was not letting me come without a struggle ... and through it all, his rough voice was inside me, making my chest vibrate ... and I held on to him as if only he would ever save me.

I cried when I came, soft tears that ran down into my ears ... a wet trail he kissed as he pressed inside me and let me come down from the high only long enough to give him a chance to take a deep breath ... and then he was thrusting inside, hard, fast, powerful ... until he came in warm, rhythmic gushes I could swear I felt swirling inside me for so long that it made me come again in trembling aftershocks as he shuddered.

We should never have gone to Rome.

Inside the house, Ralph was sitting in the corner of the kitchen. Hurting, I could tell, but too proud to plead for his life. I was going to sit by him, thinking this was some sort of hostage situation and that I'd feel better near Ralph. But Luke said for William to take me into the living room.

And there I sat, later, no longer cradling Buck on my lap but holding him next to me as he strained to be released, growling lightly, baring his teeth every time William moved despite my whispered entreaties that he be quiet.

I could not hear what went on in the kitchen. I do not know if they spoke to Ralph. I felt myself slipping into shock and fought it. Whatever was going to happen to us, I had one ace in the hole ... Maximus. If I could hold out, he would rescue us. I knew this with every fiber of my being. I would survive this. I had a life with Max I was determined to live for.

When Luke came into our living room, he had that calm smile on his face that I'd first seen in Rosie's Tavern. He sat on the coffee table before me and if I'd not been holding Buck tightly, he would have lunged at Luke. My poor dear Alpha dog ... defending me to his death ... Don't.

"You get him under control or I will," Luke said, pleasantly. As if he were not threatening us.

"Let me put him in one of the bedrooms," I said. This is how Buck ended up in the artist's studio. As I told him to stay there and to stay quiet, my eyes caught the watercolor I'd done earlier. It was shades of brown, cream and green. Sentimental fool.

As I closed the door behind me snugly, William put his hand on my arm, trailing down it as if he had some right to take advantage of me when I was helpless to stop him. I slapped his face hard. Just in the moment William looked as if he was about to touch me again, we both heard Luke ask if something was wrong. I shoved William away from me and he trailed me back down the stairs.

The first thing I noticed when I got to the ground floor was that Luke was hunkered down near Max's altar. My heart leapt to my throat when he turned to study me as I came back in the room.

"How much do you know about your husband's life before you met him?" he asked me.

"A lot." This was not what I expected. But I didn't really know what to expect. I made the instant decision to give nothing away but what I had to give up in order to survive.

"He was married, was he not?"

"Yes."

"His wife was murdered ... his son?"

"Yes."

"Are you pregnant yet, Ann? Are you about to give him an heir, extend his line ... give him the past and future?"

The change in direction, the way he'd phrased that question ... my brain raced. What was going on? What was the right answer? "No. I'm not pregnant ... yet."

"But it's what he wants? What he wants with every fiber of his Roman being?"

What does he know? What does he want? How does he come to use the term 'his Roman being' when it relates to Max? I swallowed hard and my eyes dropped from his. "Doesn't every man want a son to carry on his name?"

"Not for the reasons a Roman man has. Let's not play games with each other, Ann."

He knew. He wanted me to know he knew who Max really was. My eyes came up to his. It was my turn to study him. "What exactly do you think you know about him?"

He and William traded long looks. "I know he stole any chance I had to have what it is he seeks with you," Luke finally said. Any smile was long gone. 

This was when I started trembling. I barely noticed it at first, not until my teeth chattered against each other. "Who are you?" I asked him finally. "And what has Max ever done to you?"

"Ah. The question to which the answer will reveal so much, would you not say?" Luke said to William even as he rose and approached me again. I sat very still as he sunk down to sit on the coffee table before me. He reached behind me for the throw blanket we kept draped on the couch. This he placed over my shoulders and I pulled the edges closed before me in the hopes I would stop shaking. It felt as if ice was forming slick spots inside me.

"I knew a man once. A soldier of Rome. He became a general after I knew him. But even when I knew him, he had been favored by his liege, Marcus Aurelius. Had he not been so favored, I would have killed him long before Commodus did," Luke said.

There was no doubt in my mind that this man knew who Max was. But to believe what he was implying - that he had come from the same time and place as Maximus? Impossible. "You have no clue what you're really saying," I told him.

"Shall I tell you the kind of man you married? The man you defend? The man who now knows who I am ... who should have known this is where I would make my strike against him ... and yet has left you here, all alone save one untrained vassal?"

"And the dog," William said, grinning when I looked up at him.

"Yes, the dog. More bravery and loyalty in that small body than Maximus Decimus Meridius had in his entire line. The line that will stop with him ... as he stopped mine with me ... unless ... ah, unless ... there is the cusp, is it not?"

My heart seemed to race too fast. I wished my mind would also race but it seemed to not get beyond the fact this man knew Max's name ... and that this man was making me believe I may have been wrong that there was no way he was from Max's time. His hatred of Max was too specific, too sharp, too personal to not be real. "How do you know Max? What did he do to you? And what are thinking you'll do to him?"

"Do you know who Lucius Verus is?"

I sped through names in my head. But it was a name I knew and it came to me in a sudden light. My mouth dropped open and I shook my head. "You're Lucilla's son? There is no way! He did not hate Max. You've blown it now, whoever you are. You can bluff well, I'll give you that. But whatever you think you know, it's nothing but a fantasy. My husband's name is Max Cooper. And ..."

But he cut off my breathy, rushing rash of words by holding up his hand before my face and snapping his fingers. "I am not her son. I am her husband. The name I gave her son was an honor to assure his place in the future."

When he said, I remembered ... Lucius had been named after his father. His father who had been dead for a few years before the time in the film. I looked into Luke's eyes, though, and I swear that I read the truth there. I believed. I asked myself the questions I should have asked him but was too numb, too frightened of the implications ... how was it possible that someone from Max's time, but who was only in the film as a name mentioned after his death, how was it possible he be here? And that in this whole vast world, their lives had intersected? Ah, it had been so wrong to go to Rome, I thought to myself, as I imagined the gods chuckling at what they'd set into motion when we'd ended up at the same restaurant in that city.

"Why would you be after Max? You didn't even know him."

"I knew him. I was co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius. Of course I knew this young officer who had garnered the respect and trust of my brother."

"But her husband was dead ..."

Luke started chuckling and he traded yet another look with William. "And that is the point of it all, Ann. Imagine if you will ... to a Roman man, there is a duty to father a son ... to bring that son into the line of your family ... to assure that you all have a place in Elysium. Did your husband, whom you obviously will have believed has told you the important points of his personal history, did he tell you that the son who was killed was not his only son?"

"Stop. I am not going to listen to more. Just tell me what you want. Money? Something we have here? Tell me what you want ..."

"Your husband took the virginity of my betrothed. He robbed me of any chance I ever had to give her my own seed, to see it grow to become the son I should have had. Do you know, she came to me pregnant? By a common young officer. A Spaniard. Imagine how I felt to learn this, after I was given my co-emperor's daughter to bind our families together forever through the birth of children ... but this son was not mine?"

"Maximus ... fathered Lucius?"

"So ... he never told you. Do you wonder what else he never said?"

"He probably never knew. Even if he did, why would he tell me? It doesn't change a thing. Not a thing."

"It was everything, Ann. Everything," he whispered, leaning toward me, his face tight, cold anger in his eyes. I shrank back into the couch. "And I could do nothing. I knew but could do nothing. To reveal this ... impossible. I needed the child. As it turned out, I needed him a great deal since my dear, sweet wife refused me any child of our own. If I had known I was to die so soon, I would have overcome every objection, every maneuver she performed ... I would have had other children with her until I had a son who shared my blood, not just my name."

"And this is why you've come here? To kill me so Max has no children? To kill him? What will all this gain you ... you hate him just because he and Lucilla had sex?" I whispered to him. "I thought you Romans were so liberal when it came to the act of sex."

He sat straight; his hand patted my knee, gently, reassuringly. "No. That sort of revenge holds no real interest to me, Ann. Though it does seem justice will be served in the end to the man my wife never let me forget."

Luke has told me he will be merciful. That he will let me see Maximus again. But it will only be once. And then I won't remember him again.

Now isn't that merciful?

I remember that time in Ostia when I told Max that I believed this would be the one mercy I would need ... that if Max ever returned to his real family through whatever door or rift in time brought him here, then I would not want to remember him because I would rather never know his love than live with his loss.

I was wrong. So very wrong.

There is no denying one thing in all of this ... the gods still have it in for Maximus.

The tale that Luke told me was one I could believe. I could see it in his eyes when he told me. This was not bragging, it was not a lie, it was not a spin.

His real name was indeed Lucius Verus. He had indeed once been co-emperor with Marcus Aurelius. They were both essentially adopted sons of an aging emperor with no sons to pass the right to rule along to. Sons of beloved advisors to Hadrian, they were trained, schooled, mentored all along for when they would eventually be named emperor. But when the time came, only Marcus was named. Honorable and loyal Marcus refused to take the crown, so to speak, without Lucius as his co-emperor because this was the wish of his liege.

They were not quite equals, really, though. Marcus always was the senior. He sent Lucius off to lead wars in the east; Marcus oversaw Rome and wars on the western frontiers. Where Marcus had strict Stoic ways and ethics, Lucius was more libertine. Lucius was, I now know, a great general. He was, I have found out since, trusted by Marcus. So trusted, so beloved that Marcus gave his only daughter Lucilla in marriage to Lucius in order to join the two bloodlines for all eternity. It was only later that it dawned on me exactly why Lucilla feared for her son ... he was obviously meant to be the next emperor and Commodus would have known that. Eventually, Commodus' madness would have grown and Lucius would never have been safe.

But this Lucius that was in our home, the father of a boy whose paternal line was in doubt, this one had died before the movie ever started. His name, only his name, had ever been mentioned. And it was enough, wasn't it, to bring him back to life? I pondered for a long time what Max had said to me in Rome, about the power of a name.

It was not the only way in which a name had proven powerful enough to change our lives. Because it was when Luke heard the name "Maximus" spoken loudly in that restaurant that he realized why the man he'd seen eating dinner at a table across the way looked so tantalizingly familiar. But different hair, the passage of time, modern clothes ... he would never have placed Maximus if I hadn't spoken his name aloud.

In the end, then, it was my fault for having given Max's identity away to an enemy.

As he told me his history, Luke alternately lounged on the settee on the other side of the coffee table from me or paced before the bank of windows that overlooked our back deck. I said little. I just let him talk. I will say I was more than interested; I was seeking understanding and knowledge that might help me.

When he talked of Lucilla, he finally stopped and looked out the windows. She had come to him for marriage; he had been so pleased at first when she seemed to get pregnant immediately. But then, during an argument when Lucius had come home between battles to visit his wife with the express purpose of adding to his family, she had told him the truth. That the child was not his. The boy was about two years old then.

"Why would she tell you?" I asked him. "Did it never occur to you she might have said it only to hurt you? That maybe she was lying?"

He turned and stared at me for a moment. "Lucilla never lied without knowing her way around the ramifications of the lie."

"I don't know what you mean."

"I wanted another child with her. I wanted many more children with her. She wanted none with me. She ..." His nose wrinkled as he thought on this. And then he smiled at me. "She thought I was asking too much of her. She was not interested in being my lover. She took steps to avoid being the mother of my children. It was not a happy marriage."

"And so from there, you jump to the conclusion that he was not your son and that he was Max's son? It doesn't seem very sound reasoning."

"You would be surprised how easy it is to learn who the daughter of the Emperor had bed. They had not been very discreet."

"I can't believe you've based a vendetta on rumors."

"You shall ask him. Oh, yes, I shall let you see him again. You shall ask him this. Will he lie to you?"

"No. He won't. He would have no reason to lie, would he?" My heart jumped with relief at the notion that I would see Max again ... and that obviously, Luke meant to let us go on with our lives, didn't he? Otherwise, why would he say we'd have another chance to talk together?

"It is not a vendetta, you do realize?" he asked me, coming now to sit on the settee across from me. "I seek something Maximus possesses. But he will not give it to me easily nor will he give it to me without either a fight or a treasure so great it eclipses the value of what I seek from him."

"You can't buy Maximus off, Luke. You said you knew him back then, that he'd even served under you at one point."

"Ah. Yes. But the treasure, you see, shall be your life. And it shall also be the restoration of the lives of his first wife and their son."

"What?" My mouth opened in a gasp. "How is that possible? If there's a way for his wife and son to be alive ... you don't have to threaten him! He would give you anything you asked if it could be so!"

He studied me, calmly, as I leaned forward with relief. In my heart, I knew this much: if he could do this, Maximus would not hesitate - she was the love of his life, this was his first son, both taken so cruelly from him, neither ever forgotten, always first in his prayers, ever his greatest sorrow that he had not saved them.

"This is what you believe? So absolutely? That he would wish to give up what he has now in order to live with them again?"

"Are you saying that you could bring them here, in whatever way it was that you came here?"

"He loves you so little that if his first wife and their son were here, that he would go with them rather than stay with you?"

I looked down at my lap. At where my hands were locked in a tight grip. "He loves me but his first allegiance is to them. Yes, he would be with them. There would be no question of that."

"And you would let this happen? You would not care? Do not think me the fool, Ann."

My left hand moved away from its clench with the right. I turned it so I could see the rings there. The diamond that signified our pledge of love. The band so recently placed on my finger that signified our unity. "I'd sacrifice anything for him, even him, if I thought it would bring him what he most wants, what he most deserves. Would it be easy? No ... it will be the hardest thing I'll ever do. And I will grieve the loss of him forever."

"You would send him off, then, with your grace?"

"I would want him to go with a clear heart. So I guess the answer is yes."

He shook his head. Leaned back into the settee. When he spoke, it wasn't aimed at me ... it was him musing aloud ... so I never answered him when he asked, "What is it about this man that engenders women to sacrifice on his behalf?"

It's all worth it.

Everything.

Knowing him.

Loving him.

What has come of our love.

I would not have missed a moment of it.

The thing is ... memories would be all I have left of him. But I won't even be left with the memories soon.

I lied to Luke. I told him I was so very glad I wouldn't remember, that I could live my life without feeling this heavy loss.

It was only later, as I made dinner under Luke's watchful eyes, that I learned what would really happen ... how Max's real family would be brought back to life if Max agreed to give Luke something that held value for Luke far beyond any imagination possible.

I admit that I stood at the sink, washing potatoes and imagining Max's real wife would be there someday, in my place, mistress of this house and farm ... his wife again. I wondered fleetingly where I'd be and I saw myself in my mom's house. But in an instant, I pictured the realities of staying in this area after Max and I divorced. It'd be too hard to live nearby, knowing I might see them even when I hadn't planned on it, as I was running errands or going to a festival perhaps. Maybe instead I'd shuck off all bonds and just wander the world, searching for a place in which love never made you make choices like this.

Luke's quiet, thoughtful voice broke through my musings. "You haven't asked me what I want from Maximus," he said. "I find that curious."

I glanced at him. "Promise me that you will not let them hurt Ralph. He knows nothing about who Max really is. He's done nothing to you."

"I told you. They've just taken him there to bind him where he cannot escape. We do not mean to hurt him as long as he does not interfere. He is nothing to me."

"Whatever it is you want from Max, he'll give you. Why would it matter to me?"

He smiled and I turned away. "Maximus has provided you with no household help? That appears so very odd to me. It would not be done that way in our time. No man of our station would think it fitting to have his wife do such lowly service in the household as scrubbing and fixing meals."

"This isn't your time though. Is it? Max has adjusted to this time; you should as well."

"Ahh. Yes. Time." I could feel him draw nearer. I looked at him over my shoulder. He leaned against the counter, the section that had a peninsula where you could sit and watch the person cooking. Close at hand but out of the cook's way.

"So then tell me. You're obviously dying to. What is it you want from Max?"

"I want to go back."

He said it softly. I stopped moving. Water sprayed down from the faucet. I felt it splashing up after hitting the bottom of the sink. It splattered on my hands as they held a potato and peeler. This is a moment, I thought to myself, one that means something and I don't think it's good.

"Go back where?" I asked. Did I already know? I still think I'd had a premonition and maybe I was already prepared.

"To my life. My real life."

I put the potato in the pot on the stove. I know I grabbed another one but for some reason, I could not feel the water that washed over it as I held it there, under the faucet.

"Go on, Ann. Ask me what I mean by that."

"You want to find a way home. To the time you left. To the Roman Empire. You think Max knows a way."

"Maximus does indeed know how to return."

I turned to look at him. He was still leaning on the counter. His eyes were intent on me. He must have read my shock, my disbelief. "You're wrong, Luke. If Max had known the way back, he would have gone long ago."

"He only just found it, Ann. When you were in Rome together." His voice dropped to a whisper. "He never told you? Never even hinted?"

Had I heard him correctly? He wanted me to believe that Max had found a way back to his old life, his old time? And he had found it while we were in Rome for our honeymoon? Surely, I would have known. Surely, Max would have told me something so important. Surely, he would have gone back to them. Surely, I knew him this well?

Surely, he would not have lingered here in this time any longer than it would have taken to tell me he would be going back to the life he had really been meant to live.

"There is no way back. At least none he knows of. Nothing you will ever say will convince me otherwise. I cannot believe you've done all this ... came here, wormed your way into my confidence, trying to get to Max, I realize now ... and now taking me and Ralph hostage when that didn't work ... and all for nothing. What are you going to do now? Now that Max has nothing he can trade you?"

"When Maximus returns here, intent on saving you, then you'll hear it in his own voice ... that he saw it, the rift in time."

For a while, we simply stared at each other. And then Luke pushed away from the counter and went to stand at the window that looks down the slope toward the stable. My attention shifted to Ralph as I looked out the same window to see Tony and William slowly leaving the stable to return to the house. I heard Buck barking upstairs.

Somehow, in that small breathless span of time, I saw with clarity what it was that Luke wanted. What it would have meant to him if Max had found a way to return to his past.

"Then you weren't going to bring his wife and son here, like you came here?" I asked him. He shook his head. "He has to go to them. To their time. He takes you with him, that's what you want? So you can go back to your real life, the one back then?"

"Yes. Precisely." He walked back to the counter, this time taking a seat. "Maximus has found the way back. If he takes me with him, I will let you live."

"Why can't he just show you?"

"Do you not think I have gone to this place and searched? If I could see it myself, I would not need him. I would go back to when I was alive ... Knowing what I know of what is to happen to me, that someone will poison me, I will assure that does not happen. I would be alive when Marcus dies and I would be emperor. Think what that would mean for Maximus."

I wonder even now how hard I was actually praying that this would be true.

"There would be no need for Marcus to make him Protector of Rome," I said slowly as he nodded at me. "I see. He would simply go home after that final battle. His wife and son would be alive when he got there."

And I saw it all before me. Maximus would have the life he had wanted. I could hear him in my head, telling Marcus almost to the second how long it'd been since he'd been home. The longing in his voice, the weariness of death, the desire to begin the future he'd been dreaming of every cold morning in Germania.

I shook my head sadly. "If only it could be true."

"It could be. If he chooses it to be."

"Why would he not?" I asked Luke, coming to the other side of the counter, the potato still in one hand, the peeler in the other. "See, this is what I keep coming to, Luke. This is why I don't believe you. If Max discovered a way back when we were in Rome, he would have gone."

"Would he? You are sure? He would have simply left you here?"

"It wouldn't have been without pain but it's what he would have done. He would have told me if he'd found a way back ... and I would have sent him there, to be with them."

"Would you?"

"I told him I would. I told him that if there was ever a way for him to return, that I'd help him. That I wanted him to be happy."

"He asked you this? He asked you how you would feel if he had found a way? Does that not indicate to you that I am telling the truth?"

"No, it was me who brought it up. I'd had this dream ... and then we were just talking ... it's because when we were there, where their spirits spoke to him when he was dying on the arena floor ... I was the one who brought up the fact that if there was a way for him to come here to this time, then it was conceivable that some day he may discover a way to return. And I wanted him to know, I would help him because ... because it would bring him peace and they need him."

"What was his response?"

"None of your business," I said sharply, thinking of Max's face at that moment between us, so private. "Besides, it doesn't matter except that it proves that you're wrong."

He pursed his lips; his eyes dropped from mine. He stroked the smooth counter with the tips of his fingers. "The last day you were in Rome, you went to the Mausoleum of Hadrian."

The Mausoleum of Hadrian. Where Marcus and other rulers of Rome had been interred  upon their deaths. Where Maximus had wanted to go. Where I had watched over him as he'd stood inside one of the large rooms, saying prayers in Latin to his ancestors that neither I nor any passerby would have understood. Safe in the security of anonymity and words spoken in a tongue no one else understood.

It felt a violation that Luke knew of this visit. More than that ... it scared me because of the look in his eyes as he let me turn this over in my memory.

"Yes, we did," I said, my mouth suddenly dry. "How did you know?"

"I followed you. I was inside, nearby, when you entered the room where Maximus made a symbolic sacrifice ... incense for his gods, his ancestors ... and also to someone who'd once been interred there and to whom Maximus owed so much."

"Marcus." I said the name on a whisper and Luke looked up at me with a smile. "You were interred there as well, before the Visigoths."

"Yes. I feel quite odd each time I go there now."

"Are you trying to tell me that he saw a rift in time there as he spoke to Marcus?"

"No. However, it was there he spoke to Marcus Aurelius in Latin ... He spoke to them all in Latin ... his gods, his ancestors ... You were standing right by him - did you not hear him?"

"I don't understand Latin. I was there but ... but I could never have comprehended what he was saying. He told me he was praying to them."

"He was. He did not lie. He simply did not tell you what his prayers covered."

"And you will?"

"That is the point of it all, Ann."

"Tell me what he said to them." Did I know how to tell who told me the truth anymore?

"Maximus asked them to continue to watch over his wife and child until he could join them in Elysium. He asked them to guide him, for his choice would need some explanation, some promise to those he had already lost."

"His choice?"

"Yes," he said softly, staring at me, his head tilting to one side. "He had seen them, you see. His wife and son."

"What?" It came out on a hushed breath. "He saw his wife and son? Where? When?"

"He saw them while you were with him in the Coliseum. There was a rift in time only Maximus could see ... but nonetheless, he could see them ... they beckoned to him ... they bade him to join them, to go live with them. To walk through that rift to be with them again."

"No."

"Yes."

"He could have gone to them?" I asked, feeling tears falling and not understanding why except that I could imagine his heart in that moment and I thought it would have leapt for joy to see them.

And then I remembered my dream. Of him seeing them there. Of him looking back at me, his face lit up with the sheer joy of finding them again. And of him walking away, turning to go to them. I am so selfish. My dream of the Coliseum's dissolution was obviously my reaction - not to be happy for Maximus' joy but to be falling into despair when my own world collapsed without him in it.

"Yet he did not go to them, Ann. He chose to stay with you."

"He would never do that." I blinked and tried to swallow but couldn't make this make sense. "You're lying to me."

"It tortured him. A horrible thing for them to do to him ... to torture him by making him choose whether or not he should live this life out. Apparently, it had not been much of a dilemma for him ... he never wavered. He wanted to stay. He believed some day he would be with them but not yet. He could never abandon you."

"He said that? He told them that? Then? In Rome?"

"Yes. And can you see, can you understand now? He will not willingly simply leave you, Ann, even to return to them. But if the choice is different ... if the choice is that you will die if he stays, then he will return. This, I know. I believe perhaps you know now, as well."

Even today, I look back on this revelation ... and what it really meant once I understood it all ... and my heart cannot encompass the way it feels to know how he loves me.

Maximus had found the way home ... it had been a rift in time he'd seen when we'd been in the Coliseum ... and Luke had heard his revelation about this and heard him confess to his gods that he was choosing not to walk into that rift.

Instead, he chose to stay. In this time. In this place. With me. For this life.

And if Luke had not overheard Max's prayers in the Mausoleum, I would never know this about him. I would never feel this way deep inside me at a time when knowing it fills me with a sense of him I never knew before.

But if Luke had not overheard Max's prayers that day, then he would never have come into our lives again ... he would not have come there to force Maximus to take him back. For Luke had tried by himself to find the rift once he had overheard Maximus describe where it was. But Luke could not find it himself. And he wanted to go back more than anything, as it would turn out. Luke wanted his old life, wealth, station, world. He wanted to go back.

Back to their shared past.

Back to correct what had happened. I thought of Maximus going back to live out his natural life in the place that was his, the time he knew, to where he could save those he'd once lost.

This, then, was why Luke had tracked us down. It began to fall into place. And Maximus had figured out who Luke was.

We ate the strawberries. We polished off the canapés. Maximus drained the last of the champagne.

Sitting right in the middle of that huge bed in the opulent room. First night of our honeymoon.

I remember how hungry I was - hungry enough to rouse myself from the tangled-up warmth of him to go get the platter of food the concierge had sent up hours earlier.

I don't remember being tired until after Max wrestled the final canapé from my fingers as I was putting it between my lips. He moved so swiftly. One moment, I was giggling at having stolen the canapé as he drank the final bit of champagne despite my protest. And the next, his teeth were over my fingers, dragging the tips of them into his warm, wet mouth ... and then his tongue came in between my fingers, touching my lip, dragging the canapé into his mouth as I let go of it. And he turned that into a kiss after he swallowed.

But it was a lazy, sated kiss. Redolent of his confidence of how he owned my very soul. And I suppose my kiss in return was saturated in my possession of his own soul.

Why would I ever have thought I'd ever want to forget knowing I'd shared this kind of love with a man? A man who, given the choice, wanted so desperately to stay and live this life with me that he defied his gods yet again. How could I ever think I'd want to be robbed of my memories when that would be all I'd have left of him?

Yesterday, I thought this was so. Yesterday, when I thought we would always be together, it had been easier to sacrifice memories.